Book Written in ‘30s is Still Relevant
Article featuring Jen featured in The Courier Journal
“The chances are that at some time in your life, possibly only now and then between husbands, you will find yourself settling down to a solitary existence,” wrote Vogue scribe Marjorie Hillis in the 1936 book “Live Alone and Like It.”
The gem of a single gal’s handbook, a best-seller in its time, has just been re-issued by Hachette Book Group. It’s as snappy, smart and sophisticated as any modern “Girls’ Guide.” The gifted, glamorous Hillis is Cynthia Rowley, Candace Bushnell and Helen Gurley Brown rolled into one.
Packed with advice on entertaining, decorating, discreet love affairs, the how-to’s of liquor and, most of all, how to make a delightful life for yourself without a live-in man, it’s a fascinating look back at the status of the single woman in the ‘30s that’s also relevant to today’s independent ladies.
San Francisco writer and media personality Jerusha Stewart, author of 2005’s “The Single Girl’s Manifesta,” is ecstatic about the revival of “Live Alone.”
“What really struck me was there was this book back in the 1930s, Helen Gurley Brown writes ‘Sex and the Single Girl’ around 30 years later, and then I write another book a little more than 30 years later. It’s interesting that we were very much on the same page, writing about being single and liking it,” Stewart, 50, says. “It’s just so appropriate and so fun, glamorous and celebratory. I think it really does have the potential to be a best-seller now.”
The book is especially timely since, according to a New York Times analysis of census results, in 2005, 51 percent of women in the United States were living alone. Census results from the 1930s aren’t easily analyzed, since they used different categories to measure statistics. The most significant: 31.5 percent of families listed with a woman head of household were women living alone.
Hillis used the rather unattractive term “Liver-Alone” to describe the ladies to whom she was writing: not sad spinsters, but vital women with their own bubbling social lives who keep their appearances, minds and dwellings in optimal shape. Adding a man to the mix is looked upon as a complement to an already great-looking lifestyle, not the centerpiece.
The book is not at all a screed against marriage and motherhood. Hillis herself married at age 49.
Nancy Theriot, professor and chairwoman of the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at University of Louisville, looks at Hillis and her work in context.
“For somebody who had a career as a magazine writer, marrying would not be something you could do,” Theriot says. “It was considered a full-time role to be a wife and mother, it wasn’t like you could do both. Our more-modern concept of (having it all) was just not on peoples’ radar.”
Theriot also makes the point that “Live Alone” was chiefly targeted at middle- to upper-class white women. At the time, most black women and immigrants didn’t have the social or economic freedom to make such choices, and there are some outdated, uncomfortable references to “colored” maids in the book.
Other than that (and endless mention of bed jackets), “Live Alone” seems remarkably progressive for being written 70 years ago. Theriot points out that “in some sense, the ‘30s are more like the ‘60s or ‘70s than the ‘50s are. In the post-WWII ‘50s, gender roles became more written in stone, she says. The ‘30s, however, were a transition time for women. They were coming off the ‘20s, when women’s social roles started to expand because they took on so many responsibilities during World War I. Prior to that, “a woman alone is a woman who’s coming on to men. A woman who’s not in the protection of a husband or father is a suspicious character. Those ideas are loosening up by the ‘30s,” Theriot says.
This was also the time of the Great Depression, which also required women to fend for themselves. But the economic downturn didn’t affect the class of women to whom Hillis was writing as adversely.
Fast forward to the ‘90s, when stereotypes of sad single women loosen to the point of completely coming apart and cable TV has served up four now-legendary “Liver-Alones.”
If Hillis were alive now, she surely would have been a fan of “Sex and the City.” The show started with four “Liver-Alones,” two of whom (Samantha and Miranda) seemed to really savor it, but ended up as “Married in Manhattan” or “Betrothed in Brooklyn.”
“The ‘Sex and the City’ movie, in a way, is kind of old-fashioned; here you have these women calling themselves ‘the last single girls,’ and they’re all married or in relationships,” Stewart says. “That doesn’t make any sense at all. When the show ends, where the movie begins, that’s where they are. They kind of couch it as being about being single, but it’s really just about searching for The One.”
Despite the betrayal of the series’ promise, there was still something valuable to be learned by the film, says Jennifer Musselman, author of the new book “Own It,” a single woman’s guide to home-buying.
To Musselman, some advice that Miranda gave Carrie was priceless: In the beginning. Carrie’s situation looked impossibly perfect. Mr. Big, her Mr. Right, purchased a breathtaking penthouse for their love nest. True to her lawyerly instincts, Miranda instantly warned Carrie that legally, the home was his, and should she sell her own apartment, devote herself to decorating and then break up with Big, she’d be homeless.
“Just because you’re partnered up, you can’t stop thinking about yourself,” Musselman says. In her book, Musselman, 35, encourages women to let go of the idea that they need to be married or paired to pursue their dream of home ownership. The Los Angeles-based writer lives alone and says she loves it.
“I took the second bedroom and made it into a yoga/dance room for myself,” she says. “If I was with someone, we would have to agree on what to make that room. Either it becomes a baby room if we decide we want to have a child, or the husband might want to make it his little sports-cave retreat. Or you have to compromise and say, ‘Alright, we’ll make it an office so it’s for both of us.’ But it is just for me.”
If there are any taboos left regarding women living alone, it may have to do with the “just for me” factor.
“You don’t have to compromise; you can be totally selfish,” Theriot says. “Selfish is something women are still not supposed to be. It’s more acceptable for a man to be more self-centered. The trait of being centered on yourself is seen as really unfeminine.”
Louisville’s “LA’s” aren’t concerned with their living arrangements threatening their desirability.
Robin Russo, 50, was married for 22 years, and has been living alone for two. She is reveling in the lifestyle’s perks and privacy.
“I’m the only one who messes up the bathroom. I don’t have to clean up after somebody else in the kitchen,” says Russo, a Butchertown resident working in television production. “I don’t cook. I eat whenever I want, like a quick salad or something light in the summer. That would not fit my former husband’s definition of a meal.”
Tenile Allshouse, 28, and her pal, Gina Mucci, 28, are so immersed in work and hobbies that they hardly have a moment to dwell on their solitary living situations. Allshouse, a Floyds Knobs, Ind., resident, is studying to be a chef at Sullivan University, and her free time is filled with painting, boxing and trying to get her poetry published. In “Live Alone,” Hillis advises “LA’s” to have two hobbies: one that takes you out of the house, and one you do at home.
Mucci, a nursing student, has a grueling schedule that’s somewhat eased by her independent living.
“I just like that I can come and go as I please,” Mucci, a Highlands resident, says. “I can exercise at 11 p.m. at night ... sometimes I take that for granted.”
Living alone is also a chance to fashion one’s own identity.
“Who do I want to be next? That’s part of what I’m asking myself,” says Teri Lloyd, 50, a family therapist. She has been divorced for 19 years, and her kids have moved out. “I don’t know if living alone the rest of my life is what I want. Maybe there will be a community of us who buy an old house and live together when we’re ancient. Creating a community of friends and support has been vital for my existence. I love to throw a party.”
According to Hillis, a “Liver-Alone” hostess must know how to mix the perfect martini, Manhattan or old-fashioned.
“I don’t have a clue (how to make those),” Lloyd says. “I know how to make a mint julep, Derby Pie and bourbon balls. …”
Reporter Tamara Ikenberg can be reached at (502) 582-4174.
Source: The Courier Journal
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080623/FEATURES06/806230355
